On Liver-Colored Demons
by thejapanesemapletree
Summary: [Killing Stalking] At the end of the world, you can find the dead end of Lovers' Lane.


"Don't cross this line. Right where the stairs start."

It was like a game—a marvelous game.

"And if you do? I'll pull your neck back… And slice it up."

The end of the hallway is a wall!, he said. A dead end! If you climb over it, you will fall into the dark at the end of the world and find monsters that eat you alive.

Oh, but there is a door for me, of course, he said when he stood up. I shut it when I leave, so don't bother. The only things that pass here are me and the mail.

Yoonbum decided then. When he was put into the chair, when his thoughts were given other tasks than fearing for his life and wondering if his pain would ever stop, his heart settled back from its high, frantic flight to its nest lined in other emotions and spoke.

 _You don't love him anymore._

It was such a quiet whisper that Yoonbum was not aware of it right away. In fact, his brain recognized it as such a logical objectivity that there was a miscommunication between the two about whether he had a need to feel that emotion; whether or not he had to experience that hot pinch in his chest and long silence to know.

 _I don't love him anymore._

But the heart is persistent.

In the hollow ache of flipping over cleaning cloths and bringing the knife down on the chopping board and listening to the evermore _tick, tock_ of the clock, Yoonbum's heart tried again.

 _You don't love him anymore._

Yoonbum heard it this time, in a hush, muddled voice, from the secret part of himself he dared not try to look for. He hesitated the briefest moment, before the fear came again, his heart taking off squawking as dangerous thorns grew in its nest. Fear disturbed anything being the right answer.

 _You can't love him anymore._

Those were the words he heard when he clutched the smooth plastic bottle in his hand, the blue pills rattling inside like death maracas.

 _You_ _ **can't.**_

Much different than _don't._ Yoonbum's heart bounced up and down on its tree branch like a manic pool diver, as prickled and hostile as it could be.

Foolish brain, foolish brain! Thinking they are one in the same!

Yoonbum did not hear over the quick and bizarre motions of his brain, and that was unfortunate.

It allowed something to come between them—between his heart and mind. It allowed the sudden softness to Sangwoo's gestures to mean something, and all of Yoonbum's previous trauma to mean nothing.

Foolish are both of you, the thing said as it wrapped its body around the heart's nest. Foolish of both of you to think you never did and won't always.

Yoonbum did not know who to listen to. Three very different and frightening parts of his being pulled at him.

 _You_ _ **don't.**_

 _You_ _ **can't.**_

 _You_ _ **have to.**_

One night the three drew to a close, in the slice of a knife and the striking of a clock.

The heart grew tired. It grew tired of the brain that stayed in its high branches and the thing that rattled in its nest. I grew tired of taking off and coming back to find another sharp thorn protruding from the nest walls. Eventually, the heart was driven to the violent route, and it jumped on the branches until they broke, sending all of them falling and Yoonbum in the wake of it.

Yoonbum sliced into his finger when the grandfather clock singing its old song startled him. Disgusted by the blood that slipped immediately out of his wound onto the scallions, he whipped his hand away from the offending knife, panic there, but his heart only able to flap as it dropped into his stomach. The oil from the scallions burned the opening in the most awful way, and he rushed to clean his injury and get the red out of his sight. Cold water soothed the angry wound, and Yoonbum allowed himself a little swear under his breath, both to curse his clumsiness and comment on his pain. The drain made monstrous noises as it guzzled the water and trails of blood like a throat.

Yoonbum did not know if he should call Sangwoo.

He realized it in the absence of everything; in the patter of the water, and ticking of the settled clock, and the intense stare he gave the cut on his finger. He did not know if Sangwoo would care, or want to care, and that made his throat feel like he had swallowed peroxide.

"What's wrong?" One Sangwoo would say. He would turn Yoonbum's chair gently from behind, nothing but a sweet and tender look in his eyes.

"You're too pretty to look so sad or hateful."

Yoonbum could show this Sangwoo his hurt finger. He would tsk playfully and get a Band-Aid. He would tend to Yoonbum because he cared for him, and kiss his bleeding finger like he did to Yoonbum's long-closed scars. Yoonbum could trust this one, and Sangwoo would invite the thing to sliver up the tree again.

There was another Sangwoo, too. This one would nearly throw Yoonbum out of his chair turning it around, his teeth bared like an animal and Yoonbum forced to shrivel in his presence.

"You idiot!" He even spoke like some demonic thing. "Now there's blood in the food! You wasted it!"

He would throw Yoonbum out of the chair now, and Yoonbum would only cry as Sangwoo beat him in places where he could see the bruises that would come. It did not matter how long he did, because every time was forever, and Yoonbum was always left to snivel in his own shame. These events invited the brain to take over and call from its high place in the branches.

There was not a Sangwoo for the heart.

Yoonbum touched the place on his chest where he felt oddly empty. Although it ceased to bleed, still the water rushed over his cut, and for the first time since it happened he looked away. He craned his head over his shoulder, viewing the front door at the very end of the hallway, past the line that Sangwoo had decided was the real end.

 _Doors meant for only one person are useless things, just like games fun for only one person._ Yoonbum's heart wrote on the walls of his subconscious in bright phosphorus that shimmered with the long glow of wrongdoings. _Doors are meant to go both ways, just like games are meant for two people to enjoy. Otherwise…_

Yoonbum rolled his chair to the kitchen doorway. The line—the line! The terrible line—stood out in stark relief and could not have been clearer if it had been actually drawn. Yoonbum saw so painfully now the place where the love had ended that he went clutching for his heart and found it gone, along with the thing that had been sent to swallow it. A quiet sob caught in his throat, and the tears began their hot tracks down his face. Yoonbum hunched over and burrowed his face into his knees, the shadow game of his movements played out as the light from the kitchen defined his shape against the dark grey door.

 _I_ _ **don't.**_


End file.
